Gucci Goes To Rio

Gucci’s Spring 2010 menswear runway show on Sunday, June 21, cited as its inspiration the work of Latin American architect Oscar Niemeyer, but ultimately it bore little resemblance to his ideas.

While Niemeyer, who celebrated his 100th birthday two years ago, designed a certain number of his buildings in white, the key opening color of this spring 2010, that was where the similarities ended. Niemeyer’s oeuvre is generally curvilinear and based on echoing and imitating the opulent and twisted fauna of his native Brazil. However, all the clothes in this latest collection by Gucci’s creative director Frida Giannini were largely linear and straight.

That’s not to say there weren’t some fine ideas in this collection, in particular an excellent series of evening looks. Made with tapered pants cut off above the ankle and narrow two-button suits, they were composed in cool jacquards and silks in wonderful hues of indigo and burnt rose. Cleverly shown without dress shirts, they all looked great.

Yet, too often, these Gucci clothes, besides having little to do with Brazilian architecture had even less to do with modern men’s fashion. Many of them looked too familiar, recalling Giannini’s most recent collections for the brand and their New Wave rocket attitude.

Giannini also sent out a series of surfer looks in modernist nylons and micro fibers, but they looked as though someone who had never actually surfed designed them.

“High tech kite surfer,” said Gianinni, who confessed to not having really tried the sport. “My arms are too weak,” she laughed.

Oscar Niemeyer would not have recognized his ideas in this collection. While his buildings tapped directly into his immediate and exotic environment for inspiration, this Gucci collection did not.